Stewart McNicol, English teacher at the Sixth Form College, delivered a guest lecture at Sheffield Hallam University’s Department of Humanities on the 9th of March.

Stewart has built up a reputation among academics researching English Language variation, stemming from his talk “Future Englishes,” from the TEDx Stoke-on-Trent 2016 event held here at the College. As a result of that talk, he was invited to speak at Queen Mary University’s LVitC2017 conference back in October, in front of an audience of educators, academics and other interested parties. He spoke alongside several respected researchers and practitioners in the field.

Karen Grainger, Principal Lecturer in English Language at Sheffield Hallam, saw Stewart at the QMU event and felt his talk and his area of expertise would be of interest to many of her colleagues and her students who are thinking of a career in education.

Stewart’s talk concerned the subject of Language Variation in the Classroom at the Department of Humanities research seminar.

The talk was very well received by university students and academics alike. On Twitter, audience members shared their reactions which included: ‘what a great talk’, ‘food for thought’ and ‘fantastic talk’. One response was even retweeted by renownedchildren’s literacy guru, and host of Radio 4’s “Word of Mouth,” Michael Rosen.

Stewart’s academic commitments are one example of Sixth Form College staff sharing their considerable expertise outside of the College. Another instance is  Humanities Teacher Chris Eyre, who, last week published three very well received, nationally available, revision guides.

Opportunities such as this demonstrate the expertise of Sixth Form College staff who are nationally recognised experts in their respective fields.